JAMAICA | Bail denied to controversial Muslim cleric

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Sept 12, CMC – The attorney representing the controversial Muslim cleric, Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal, says he is considering appealing a High Court ruling on Monday denying his client bail and have him remanded into custody.

Attorney K.D. Knight, said that his client, who has been indicted in the United States on charges that he used his public profile and personal network to recruit and provide support to those seeking to commit acts of violence and terrorism, his not a flight risk.

Justice Broderick Smith Monday denied bail to the cleric, whose is also known as Trevor William Forrest, after hearing arguments in the Kingston and St. Andrew parish court.

The matter has since been adjourned to October 27. Knight said that his client is maintaining his innocence.

In August, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., and New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill said Forrest, 53, also known as “Shaikh Faisal, used his network to aid the Islamic State.

They said Faisal had been indictment with soliciting or providing support for an act of terrorism in the first degree as a crime of terrorism and other charges.

The indictment follows a yearlong investigation by the New York Police Department (NYPD) Intelligence Bureau and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s Counter Terrorism Programme, which was created in June 2015 to identify and pursue investigative leads related to home-grown terror plots, extremist activities and terror-financing.

According to the indictment and documents filed in court, beginning in December 2016, Faisal and an undercover NYPD officer based in New York began communicating remotely while Faisal was living in St. James, Jamaica.